News broke this week that the Dallas Mavericks are no longer playing the national anthem before their home games.

Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban confirmed this week that his team has not played the anthem before any of their games this season, and plan to continue not playing it. The crazy part is that there has been little to no explanation about the decision. When a reporter from The Athletic reached out to Cuban, he confirmed that the anthem was not being played, but offered no comment. Imagine that, Cuban with no comment.

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The only real clarity anyone has been given was by an NBA league official. The official confirmed that the league is allowing each team to determine how their pregame is run during the Covid restrictions.

So the obvious question is why? Why did Cuban and the Mavs make the decision to not play the anthem? There's no way for us to know yet, but I'm confident that we will find out soon.

The question I want to ask is do you think that the anthem NEEDS to be played before all sporting events?

I'm not sure when the tradition began, but I'm pretty sure that none of us remember going to a game without the anthem being played. It's so engrained in us that most people stand up and take off their hat before being asked. The protest that Colin Kaepernick displayed by kneeling during the anthem has been a national debate, but the anthem was still played.

I don't want to guess at the motivation for not playing the anthem, but it does make us ask if it's necessary. We asked people to weigh in and the overwhelming majority say that the anthem is an absolute must at sporting events.

Do you think there is any case for not playing the anthem?

 

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